A reflective post from 2012. My advice to younger people at the time when I had just retired, and was regretting many decisions I had made in life.
Hardly any of you have seen this one before.
When I was young, I anticipated that later life, and old age, would bring with it peace, financial security, and well-being. My car insurance premiums would be ridiculously low, and I would have enough money to travel anywhere I wanted to go. Worries would be behind me, work a distant memory, and free time would stretch out ahead of me, just waiting to be enjoyed.
Next birthday, I will be 61 years old. That means that if I live for nineteen more years after that, I will be eighty. There may have been a time when nineteen years seemed like a lifetime. Perhaps when I was still a teenager, and could not imagine life as a 38-year old, I don’t specifically recall. What I do know for sure now, is that nineteen years seems like a very short time indeed. Although we are ‘comfortable’ financially (whatever that really means), I…
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beetleypete 
I can certainly understand the predicament of thinking that there will be enough money and then having to watch expenses. We really could never accurately predict what retirement would be like. Still, I did what I wanted to do when I was younger.
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Thanks, Elizabeth. I did quite a lot too, but ‘saved’ some of it until I was retired. Then I couldn’t afford to do it! 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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I get what you’re saying in principle. Don’t put off the things you really want to do until later – do them while you can. On the other hand, I like all the common sense comments above. Given the constraints we have at each stage in our life, we do the best we can. And there’s still time Pete. Maybe your travels will just have to be closer to home. Lots of folks on this side of the pond would love to enjoy England the way you do! Pretend you’re a tourist there. Anyway that’s my spin on it. 🙂
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It is more about feeling a sense of ‘betrayal’ about how hard I saved for retirement, only to discover that it was apparently nowhere near enough to be able to do all the things I had expected to be able to do. I should have done more with that money when I was in my 20s. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Life is all about free time, spare change, a cooperative body, a positive attitude, and supportive relationships.
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That sounds about right. Though a lot more of that ‘spare change’ would help. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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I didn’t have the money to do it now when I was young enough to do it!
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Yes, that’s an issue. But I could have done things like working abroad, paying my way, picking grapes or whatever. So many things I should have tried, when I was fit enough to do them. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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“I have always found that each step we take in life is to be regretted-if we once begin to wonder how many other steps might have been possible.”
John Oliver Hobbes
I know you’re a great fan of nostalgia and wallowing, but don’t add regrets to that!! Don’t spend your last 19 years what ifing, you’ll go out regretting wasting the last 19 years!! 🙄🤣
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Thanks for your ‘sensible’ comment, FR. It is not so much regret, as annoyance that the idea I had of an ‘easy retirement’ turned out to be nothing of the sort. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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I thought being a grown up would be easy when I was a kid, and am still thinking retirement will be easy when I finish work in 7 years. Living in cloud cuckoo land my Mum used to call it! 😀 😀
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We thought we would have enough to be ‘comfortable’. But life got in the way. Now there’s not enough spare money to change my 12 year-old car, and jobs on the house have to be done after ‘saving-up’ for each one. If anything ‘big’ goes wrong, then that’s the savings gone. I never imagined having to live from month to month, but then we didn’t know Julie would be made redundant, or that everything would keep getting more and more expensive than we had ever anticipated.
Certainly didn’t turn out as I had hoped, hence me wishing I had done a lot more when I was younger.
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Yep I get it.
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I think all us old farts look back when we retire to see if there is something we should have done…..me? I would not change a thing…..chuq
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I would have worried less about buying houses, and more about seeing far-flung places. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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My travels were a dream…..I could not have wanted a better time….chuq
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Great post to read Pete. You certainly did more than I ever did (going to China…whoa, that is so awesome!) but your advice is definitely sound. Do it now. I have my own regrets for sure, and there are certainly things that I wish to do myself still and keep postponing. For the life of me I don’t really know why. I keep making up lame excuses that at the time I make them seem sound, but really aren’t. That said, I guess it’s also part of growing up, and there are certainly enough things in my life that I do look back on with happyness. One of those is certainly blogging and meeting all kinds of wonderful people, such as yourself. As for being old: I always say this, and I will keep saying it: You are as old as you feel (or even make yourself feel). Being as popular as you are: there is still a lot of life left in you Pete, trust me on that 😊
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Thanks, Michel. I appreciate all that, but my advice to you is still the same, after seven years.
Do it now. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
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Well, I will take that advice to heart: I promise you that 😊 Thanks Pete, have a great weekend!
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